Dear Science,
You will never figure out attraction by putting people in a lab and asking them what they like. It's more complicated than that. You'll understand when you're older.
"It is important to remember that this study explored first-impressions of sexual attraction to images of the opposite sex," says Alec Beall, a UBC psychology graduate student and study co-author. "We were not asking participants if they thought these targets would make a good boyfriend or wife -- we wanted their gut reactions on carnal, sexual attraction."
1) An honest expression of joy
2) A manifestation of nervous energy
A confident guy in the presence of an attractive woman will do #1. A shy guy will do #2. #2 displays the guy thinks he isn't worthy. The sub-communication is neediness. #1 displays that the guy is comfortable around women like her. The sub-communication is contentment, abundance.
And if the images as shown are really those used in the study then all the emotions just look fake. Humans are pretty good at telling the difference between real emotions and fake emotions (which is part of the reason why good actors can make so much money).
I once volunteered for a study on how the brain processes emotion in the voice in schizophrenic patients (I was in the control group... I hope!). While seventy bucks for half an hour's work sounds pretty good when you're a student, it turns out that lying in an incredibly loud MRI machine for half an hour while headphones play a nonstop series of bad actors enunciating the words "It's eight o'clock" while trying to sound "happy" vs "fearful" vs "angry" vs "neutral" is really hard and relatively unpleasant work. Anyway, the point of this story is that the actors on the recording obviously weren't really happy or fearful or angry about the fact that it's eight o'clock, so I always wondered whether my brain processed that obviously-fake emotion differently to real emotion. And who knows if that's what's going on here?
Besides, the guy in his "proud" pose is showing off some reasonably impressive arm muscles which are otherwise hidden under his baggy t-shirt -- no wonder he looks more attractive!
I bet these researchers have discovered that a superficial display of pride in an oversized white t-shirt is popular among men because it highlights boobs. The study is flawed beyond repair.
